The Register

Phones, email, and core systems knocked out at Higham Lane in Nuneaton

Students at a school in Warwickshire, England, have scored an extended Christmas break after a cyberattack crippled its IT systems, forcing classrooms to close and staff to summon government incident responders.…

Central government will supposedly be as secure as energy facilities and datacenters under new proposals

The UK today launches its Government Cyber Action Plan, committing £210 million ($282 million) to strengthen defenses across digital public services and hold itself to the same cybersecurity standards it's imposing on critical infrastructure operators.…

Crim used infostealer to get cloud credentials

If you don't say "yes way" to MFA, the consequences can be disastrous. Sensitive data belonging to about 50 global enterprises is listed for sale – and, in some cases, has already been sold – on the dark web following a major infostealer campaign, with apparent victims including American utility engineering firm Pickett and Associates; Japan's homebuilding giant Sekisui House; and Spain's largest airline Iberia.…

A subpoena has been issued, apparently

Resecurity offered its "congratulations" to the Scattered Lapsus$ Hunters cybercrime crew for falling into its threat intel team's honeypot – resulting in a subpoena being issued for one of the data thieves. Meanwhile, the notorious extortionists have since removed their claims of gaining "full access" to the security shop's systems.…

CEO Nikesh Arora's trip to Tel Aviv last month sparked rumors.

Palo Alto Networks is on shopping spree. The company is reportedly considering a $400 million purchase of Israeli cybersecurity start up Koi, which raised $48 million in funding last year. …

It's January 2026, and Google is finding innovative new ways to make one of its services worse

Important news for Gmail power users: Google is dropping the feature whereby Gmail can collect mail from other email accounts over POP3.…

Government 'incredibly' concerned about breach potentially affecting more than 100,000 patients

New Zealand health minister Simeon Brown has ordered a review into the cyberattack at ManageMyHealth, which threatens the data of hundreds of thousands of Kiwis.…

Also, Korean Air hacked, EmEditor installer hijacked, a perfect 10 router RCE vuln, and more

infosec in brief  The Trump administration has cleared a trio of individuals sanctioned by the Biden administration for involvement with the Intellexa spyware consortium behind the Predator surveillance tool, removing restrictions that had barred them from doing business with the US.…

Lock 'em down

interview  AI agents represent the new insider threat to companies in 2026, according to Palo Alto Networks Chief Security Intel Officer Wendi Whitmore, and this poses several challenges to executives tasked with securing the expected surge in autonomous agents.…

Netflix documentary part 2 in the works?

Ilya Lichtenstein, who pleaded guilty to money-laundering charges tied to the 2016 theft of about 120,000 bitcoins from the Bitfinex exchange and was sentenced to five years in prison, has been released after roughly 14 months in the slammer.…

For the bargain price of 6.5 bitcoin

A cybercrook claims to have breached Pickett and Associates, a Florida-based engineering firm whose clients include major US utilities, and is selling what they claim to be about 139 GB of engineering data about Tampa Electric Company, Duke Energy Florida, and American Electric Power. The price is 6.5 bitcoin, which amounts to about $585,000.…

Jacob Riggs is set to swap London for Sydney some time in the next year

A British security researcher has secured Australia's strictest, invite-only visa after discovering a critical vulnerability in a government system.…

Gavin Webb orchestrated Operation Cronos as it pulled off the legendary disruption sting

A senior British crimefighter has been awarded one of the country's highest tributes for public service for his role in the 2024 LockBit ransomware takedown.…

How network-led Cisco XDR helps teams see threats clearly and respond faster

Sponsored Post  Security teams are being asked to do more with less, while the environments they protect continue to grow in size and complexity. Alerts arrive from dozens of tools, each offering a partial view of risk. The real challenge is no longer finding potential threats, but deciding which ones matter and how quickly to act.…

As in past incidents, ESA says the impact was limited to external systems

The European Space Agency has suffered yet another security incident and, in keeping with past practice, says the impact is limited. Meanwhile, miscreants boast that they've made off with a trove of data, including what they claim are confidential documents, credentials, and source code.…

Funds in ‘Money Safe’ accounts are only available when customers appear for face-to-face verification

Hong Kong’s banks have a new weapon against scams: Accounts that require customers to visit a branch to access their funds.…

Pair became ALPHV affiliates to prey on US-based clients

A ransomware negotiator and a security incident response manager have admitted to running ransomware attacks.…

Zohran Mamdani appears not to understand that smartphones can be used for evil

New York’s mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has invited the city’s residents to join him at a block party to celebrate his inauguration but told attendees not to bring a Raspberry Pi to the event.…

You didn't think you'd get to enjoy your time off without a major cybersecurity incident, did you?

A high-severity MongoDB Server vulnerability, for which proofs of concept emerged over Christmas week, is now under active exploitation, according to the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.…

One cert, in plaintext, on thousands of devices, led to what looks like years of crime

South Korea’s Ministry of Science and ICT has found that local carrier Korea Telecom (KT) deployed thousands of badly secured femtocells, leading to an attack that enabled micropayments fraud and snooping on customers’ communications – maybe for years.…